MEMORIES OF THE FUTUREMy sister awoke me very early that morning and said to me “ Get up, you have to come and see this the sea has been filled with stars” Marveled by this revelation I hastily dressed myself and thought “If the sea has been filled with stars I should take the first plane and gather all the fishes from the sky”

LAST MINUTE PRECAUTIONS I must be careful of the wormswhen they bury memost certainlythey will speak badly of methey will spit on my poemsand urinate on the fresh flowersthat will adorn my tombit may well be the casethat they even devour my bonestear out my intestinesor at the height of injusticerob my gold toothand all this because in lifenever did I write about them

BLACK SYMPHONY Eve hung her dead from the window so that the air might lick the faces impregnated with scars . She looked at those faces and smiled while the wind pushed her breasts to the wormy night. An orgy of aromas shook the silence where she desired herself and among sighs and good-byes a blind cricket weeded his old violins. No one approached Eve when she suckled her dead the anger and the cold fought over her adolescence the orgasm gave way to horror the desire to blood and small violent creatures took off from her belly populating the dawn with conflict and nightmares. After when all was calm and the shadows finally went back to their source Eve put away her dead kissing them on the mouth and she slept naked on top of them until the next full moon

THE DAUGHTER OF RIMBAUD The girl with the open dress rises at the hour in which the words are celebrating for she herself is a celebration when she stretches her thighs to the sun and the wind caresses her with its infinite fingers. A tricycle of crystal awaits her next to the flowers in the yard and a nest of blind butterflies that are undressing among her bones of honey And in her bed of blue feathers she hangs her braids of wheat and counts her dead bees until falling asleep while the evening envelopes her with its yellow lips. The girl with the open dress awakens at the hour in which clocks dream because she herself is a dream when she opens her dress and the sparrows flock crazy with love above her paper breasts

TAKE ME WITH YOUTake me with you to the south of your hips where the humidity envelops the trees that emerge from your body Take me with you to the deep earth that looms between your legs to that small north of your breasts Take me with you to the cold desert that threatens your mouth to the exiled oasis of your navel Take me with you to the west of those feet that were mine of those hands that enclosed the sea and the mountains Take me with you to other villages with the first kiss to the interminable region of tongue and flowers to that genital route to that river of ash that you spill Take me with you everywhere, love and everywhere direct my fingers as if you were the homeland and I, your only inhabitant

NOTES FOR A LEGEND A woman is standing on a bridge that has never existed Her skin that has never been kissed floats on the waters of time like a faceless memory A letter that has never been read struggles to reach the riverbank to be discovered by someone A man who has never read who cannot read who has never learned to finds the letter and the body beneath this bridge The man cries from impotence while the letter disintegrates in his fingers The river which is full of tears pities this man and reveals to him the secret of this letter And the man, insane with love brings together his nights and his delirium to jump from this bridge that has never existed

UNFINISHED PEDAGOGY The child asks his father if words grow old The father responds to the child that words remain as young as on the first day The child runs to his grandfather to bring him the good news And the elder abruptly opens the word drawer so that they will tell him the secret

THE BOAT OF FAREWELLS I am the child who plays with the foam of the hopeless seas On this beach garlanded with gulls I stretch my arms like lazy nets while the waves pinch my dreams and a single tear breaks against the rocks The cliffs loom over the shore they come barefooted to dance on my soul and their lips bring seaweed and coral the yeast of the sea converted into a kiss I move my feet then like two old oars my heart is an ocean of faces and hands and I enter there unwittingly with my luggage of sand clutching the wind’s rudder at the prow of the years where a voice that is not my voice raises the anchor of this small boat that slips away with my childhood on board

THE SINATRA CLAN All of the cats in my neighborhood are Sinatra fans they begin to la-la-la his themes a soon as I put on the CD and the voice flows between the ceiling and the brick walls At times they beg me to repeat some single then the sound of “My Way” “New York” or “Let Me Try Again” pricks up their whiskers and throws them headfirst against the glass This does not happen when I read my verses they stretch, yawn look away or chat amongst themselves in a lamentable display of ignorance and sabotage "You do not understand me" I tell them And I put on the CD again so that Sinatra sings and those cats are filled with poetry

THE OTHER WOMANCaperucita never imagined that El Lobo would leave her for another woman. She never paid attention to the advice given in matters of love by her Grandmother. It would seem that one morning El Lobo told her "Caperucita, I want to break up with you. It no longer excites me to chase you through the woods; it no longer pleases me to dress as your grandmother to allow you to tell me your usual stupidities, that I have big ears and eyes such sharp teeth, and me, like an idiot, responding that they are the better to hear you, smell you and see you. No, Caperucita, our relationship is over." So Caperucita, disconcerted by this confession, set out to run as far away as she could, thinking of the class of woman who had conquered the heart of her lover. "It is her, I must be like her", repeated the child while searching desperately the house of the old woman. "Grandmother", she finally cried, when she had contemplated the face lying in the bed, "how could you do this to me? You, the friend in which I confided most?" "I am sorry", said the other woman, "I never expected to become pregnant at my age, and much less from someone so intelligent and imaginative. Nevertheless, he is a responsible wolf, who I do not doubt for a minute, for offering me marriage on hearing the news. I am sorry, Caperucita, you must seek out someone else. After all, this is not the only wolf in the world, right?

Translated by Ron Hudson

Mario Meléndez, born in 1971, from Linares, Chile, studied Journalism and Social Communication. Among his books, “Autocultura y juicio” (with preface from the National Prize of Literature, Roque Esteban Scarpa), “Poesía desdoblada”, “Apuntes para una leyenda”, “Vuelo subterráneo”, “El circo de papel” y “La muerte tiene los días contados” are most prominent. In 1993, he received the Municipal Prize for Literature for the Bicentenial of Linares. His poems have appeared in various Latin American literary revues and in national and foreign anthologies. He has been invited to numerous literary conferences, notably including The First and Second Latin-American Writers Conference, organized by the Society of Writers of Chile, Santiago, 2001 and 2002, as well as the First International Conference on Amnesty and Solidarity with the People, Rome, Italy, 2003. At the beginning of 2005, his work was published in the prestigious magazines “Other Voices Poetry” and “Literati Magazine.” That same year, he was awarded the Harvest International Prize, given by the University of California-Pomona in the United States, for best Spanish-language poem. His work has been translated into Italian, English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Romanian, Bulgarian, Farsi and Catalan. For four years, he lived in Mexico City, where he conducted literary workshops and various cultural projects, as well as having directed the collection of Latino-American Poets in Laberinto Editions. He also created various anthologies of Chilean and Latin-American Poetry. Currently, he is living in Italy, where he has lectured on Latin-American Poetry at the University of Urbino and he has held readings of his texts, translated to Italian by the poet and essayist Emilio Coco for the International Festival of Daunia Poetry of San Severo and in Dire Poetry of Vicenza. In December, 2012, he was invited to attend the Book Fair of Rome by the Italo-Latin-American Institute. At the beginning of 2013, he received the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, given by the International Foundation Don Luigi di Liegro. He is considered one of the most important voices of new Latin-American Poetry.